GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said Saturday that his cash-strapped campaign machine will march forward into North Carolina next week -- despite reports that stops in that state and elsewhere had been placed on indefinite hold, according to a report by Fox News. Filed federal reports indicated that the Gingrich campaign had $4.3 million in debt and has $1.22 million cash on hand. The campaign raised $1.6 million in March but spent $2.01 million, Fox News reported. Other public records revealed that Gingrich started the month of March with $1.55 million in debt and only $1.54 million in cash reserves....

Former Governor Mitt Romney is already offering top donors access to a special "Presidential Inaugural retreat," planned on the assumption that he will be elected president this November. The offer, in a fundraising email circulated by a top Georgia supporter to fellow Republicans and obtained by BuzzFeed, is one of several goodies offered to those who contribute more than $50,000 to the joint fundraising committee known as "Romney Victory," a program whose outlines were first reported by POLITICO. Those donors will be named "Founding Members" of Romney Victory and invited to a California retreat with Romney and offered "yet to...

For those of you who did not get or see the memo from Vince Haley, Mitt still has some major problems. Here is the Haley Memo, in relevant part: [H]ere is the crucial news about why --- with 17 states to go -- the Romney forces are worried, worried that the frontrunner's weakness is surfacing again in the Republican primaries. Here are two crucial news items causing Romneyites to worry. -- Despite much pressure from Romney forces, Colorado Republicans last weekend at their Denver convention surprised political observers by electing - and by a large margin -- more uncommitted than...

Dover, DE - Newt 2012 announced today that Hans Reigle, Chairman of the Kent County Republican Party, is switching his support from Mitt Romney to Newt Gingrich. Reigle has also served as the Mayor of Wyoming, Delaware and over 20 years in the United States Air Force. “I previously endorsed Governor Romney, but since then Newt is the only candidate who has shown a willingness to meet and talk with Delaware voters for more than hour,” said Hans Reigle. ”Over the past few weeks I’ve listened to Newt discussing his vision for achieving $2.50 gasoline, balancing the budget, and shrinking...

Conservatives laugh at sheep and useful idiots. We laughed at Democrats when their "Anybody but Bush" got them Kerry. They thought that "Anybody but" works. It doesn't. The electorate needs something to vote FOR and not against. It's called "inspiration" and "something to believe in". Fear is not a belief. It is an unbridled emotion that clouds judgment and has been on full display lately. Romney is not yet the nominee but some believe it is a done deal. The controllers, the RNC and the MSM, want you to believe that. It flies in the face of everything we know....

LANCASTER, Pa. - Two of the Republican candidates for president are in Pennsylvania a week ahead of the state's primary election. Mitt Romney, the GOP's all-but-certain presidential nominee, and Newt Gingrich, are scheduled to speak at the Republican Committee of Lancaster County’s spring event in Lancaster on Tuesday evening. Rick Santorum, who suspended his campaign last week, has canceled his appearance. Santorum, a former Pennsylvania U.S. senator, hasn't hinted whether he'll eventually endorse Romney, but said he'll say soon how he'll continue to press for conservatism in politics.

SILVER SPRING, Md. — Five different political contests are being conducted right now. Only two are evident to the naked eye. The first of the visible contests pits Mitt Romney against Rick Santorum for the Republican presidential nomination. The results here in Maryland and in Wisconsin this week tell us who has a commanding lead there. The second visible contest pits Romney against President Barack Obama. That one began this month with their twin addresses to the convention of editors in Washington. Obama has a 4-point lead, according to a Gallup poll conducted last week for USA Today. Now to...

Before I get to the thread title material, let me say that Bush is not going away anytime soon. Obama brought him up today with Medicare Part D and will continue to bring him up again & again. If Romney praises Med. part D, Obama can say "See, Romney agrees with me that the first Republican president was right about the federal gov't..." as he said today. If Romney attacks Med. Part D as being big gov't, Obama can retort "Why is Romney attacking me for attacking Bush? Romney has also attacked Bush." And the issue of whether or not...

APPLETON, Wis. — Mitt Romney’s advisers and top supporters have begun informally discussing potential vice presidential candidates and although they are careful to note that the campaign is far from putting together a short list, key supporters and strategists said Friday that they are beginning to see the outlines of the kind of person Romney will choose — and the kind he will avoid. The conventional thinking has been that after a long and divisive primary campaign, the challenge of uniting the GOP would force Romney to pick a running mate with strong appeal to tea party activists and evangelicals....

The Washington Times is usually pretty good, but they really blew this one. They claim that Romney is now getting Tea Party support. The writer for the Times either didn’t know better or engaged in some creative writing. Among other things, he claims that Freedomworks has dropped its opposition to Romney, something that Freedomworks denies. The Times in its blatant desire to see Romney as the nominee claims that Freedomworks launched the Tea Party movement. Ignoring the fact that is not true, I don’t think even Freedomworks makes that claim. They did help organize a big DC rally in 2009,...

. . . . . Romney’s Jobs’ Initiative Worsened the Housing Crisis in Massachusetts So when President Bush’s administration was attempting to regulate GSEs to avert a financial crisis, Governor Romney’s affordable housing policies in Massachusetts were significantly contributing to the bad assets on the books of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. According to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston the number of subprime mortgage originations in Massachusetts spiked between 2003 and 2006 during Romney’s tenure as Governor of Massachusetts. Given that there were prominent conservative whistle-blowers warning about the potential dangers of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,...

Half of all Americans now express unfavorable views of Mitt Romney, a new high for the GOP presidential hopeful in Washington Post-ABC News polling. The deteriorating public impressions of the former Massachusetts governor foreshadow a significant obstacle for him as he tries to shift the focus of his campaign toward a potential match-up against President Obama. Romney’s negative numbers have jumped around this election cycle, but the overall pattern is similar to his trajectory four years ago: As he became better known, his unfavorables shot up far more rapidly than his positive numbers. Negative impressions are up eight percentage points...

A version of this column appeared originally in THE DAILY BEAST.As he campaigns for re-election, Barack Obama pursues a profound and uncommon honor denied to nearly two-thirds of his predecessors. Contrary to a widely held popular belief, political history doesn’t anoint incumbent presidents as automatic winners or even presumptive favorites. The numbers show that most presidents fail in their efforts to maintain a long-term hold on the affections of the fickle public and that Obama will face an uphill struggle in attempting to reprise his epic victory of 2008. Of the 42 men who served as president before the current...

...Romney said, “If they are 45 years old and they show up and say I want insurance because I have heart disease, it’s like, hey guys. We can’t play the game like that. You’ve got to get insurance when you are well and then if you get ill, you are going to be covered.”

Alabama's Republican governor has some advice for Mitt Romney the next time the former Massachusetts governor campaigns in the Deep South: Cut out the y'alls and references to "cheesy grits'' and be himself.

Ten days before the 2008 presidential election, as blame was beginning to be laid out for John McCain’s “likely defeat,” a top communications adviser to the campaign wrote a detailed strategy memo focused on how to preserve the reputation of another key adviser, Steve Schmidt, POLITICO has learned. *** The protective maneuver sheds more light on the final days of the 2008 campaign, a period of low morale marked by tensions between the Palin and McCain camps and the expectation of defeat. *** “Thankfully, and rightfully so, some members of the political punditry are already coming his defense (Rove, McKinnon,...

Even in an open convention, Gingrich wouldn't have a prayer of getting the nomination. But that seems to matter less to him than blowing up Mitt Romney. Gingrich no longer says he can capture the 1,144 delegates required to wrap up the Republican nomination. Instead, he now speaks frankly about a new plan: Keep Romney from getting to 1,144 by the end of the GOP primary season in June, and then start what Gingrich calls a "conversation" about who should be the Republican nominee. That conversation, the plan goes, would lead to a brokered GOP convention at which Gingrich would...

The GOP-e is starting to blame the GOP Primary and Newt Gingrich for what they see as a weakened Romney going into the General Election. BLAME Romney! BLAME the GOP Establishment! Newt Gingrich is the only conservative still running in the GOP primary! By employing a drumbeat of damaging headlines, using misleading delegate counts and by calling for him to leave, the GOP-e and their friends in the MSM have hurt Newt but they have not succeeded in knocking him out or silencing the base.

MATHEMATICALLY MR. ROMNEY CANNOT CLAIM THE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE OUTRIGHT (Vanity) After March 13, after Alabama and Miss., Romney gets total of 391 bound delegates and he needs 1,144 for nomination. So he still needs 1,144 – 391 = 753 bound delegates. About 100 bound delegates of Florida and Arizona that Romney “won” will be challenged and will be re-allocated proportionally by CD or will be unbound, so his number will be reduced even further. In the remaining elections, I consider the following states which traditionally more conservative and growing weary of Romney’s electability, the bound delegates probably will be allocated...

Mitt Romney’s transformation into a cheesy grits- and catfish-loving, ya’ll-uttering good ol’ boy in the face of tight contests in Mississippi and Alabama today is being panned by critics — skeptical Southern party officials and pundits. “If you’re going to pander, at least pander well, and this isn’t pandering well,” said Stephen Gordon, a Republican consultant based in Birmingham, Ala. The former Bay State governor is a Yankee, Gordon said, and will always face skepticism no matter how many catfish filets he raves about. “People in the Deep South have a bit of a natural distrust for Northerners, especially folks...

Hot on the heels of his eight-vote Iowa-caucus landslide, Willard Mitt Romney is crisscrossing New Hampshire before Tuesday's key primary. Romney is masquerading as a limited-government, free-market executive from next-door Massachusetts. From the Golden Gate to the Granite State, voters should greet Romney's impersonation with a quarry full of skepticism. In fact, Romney increased taxes by $309 million, mainly on corporations. These tax hikes, described by Romney apologists as loophole closures, totaled $128 million in 2003, $95.5 in 2004, and $85 million in 2005. That final year, Romney proposed $170 million in higher business taxes, the Boston Globe reports. However,...

Back Stab Sarah Palin As Portrayed By Her Disloyal Staff. MAR 19, 2012, VOL. 17, NO. 26 • BY JOHN PODHORETZ Nicolle Wallace was the onetime consultant to CBS News and media aide to George W. Bush who was assigned to work with Sarah Palin after the Alaska governor was chosen as John McCain’s running mate. It was Wallace who assured the McCain campaign that her dear friend Katie Couric, a committed liberal with a history of interviewing Republicans and conservatives in a quietly nasty way, was the right journalist to conduct a major early interview with the extremely conservative...

MITT ROMNEY may be as close to a walking, talking dollar sign as presidential politics has ever witnessed. If money were made flesh, it would apparently have fair skin, flawless hair and an off-key tropism toward patriotic anthems. I say that only partly because of all of those awkward asides of his, the ones that keep reminding voters, who need no further reminding, that he’s loaded. And I’m not really focused on just how loaded he is. With a personal net worth in the vicinity of $225 million, Romney is no Warren Buffett, no Bill Gates. There have been more...

DECEMBER 31, 2007) MassResistance is the major pro-family activist group in Massachusetts. We've been fighting for pro-family causes here since the early 1990s. We saw the Romney administration close up (although very few social conservatives were actually involved in it). We're disturbed at recent claims that Romney's campaign is making about his record. We offer the following to set the record straight. (See our Romney Report, published in November 2006.) Basically, Mitt Romney campaigned - and governed - as a social liberal. Sodomy laws and domestic partner benefits. When campaigning for governor, Romney told the homosexual newspaper Bay Windows that...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: There was a column by Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal (it's some months ago now) and I'll never forget this piece. Henninger writes really brilliant stuff pretty consistently. And in that column some months ago, he made the observation that Mitt Romney, a good guy, was always going to have to be nudged to conservatism; was always gonna have to be nudged to the right as he navigates his way through the Republican primaries. I think Henninger has been borne out; his piece is accurate. Romney has become a better debater. But the real evidence...

When Republican Scott Brown stunned the political world in 2010 by winning the U.S. Senate seat held for 46 years by Edward M. Kennedy, it was former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney who introduced Brown at the joyous victory party in Boston. A few weeks later, still basking in the rock-star glow of that unexpected win, Brown returned the favor. He introduced Romney at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference as “one of the Republican Party’s bright lights” and “my very, very dear friend.” But now, as the two men anticipate tough general-election battles in the fall, their paths are beginning...

Only twelve states have held primaries or caucuses, and shockingly, many of them have either been scandal ridden, had their dates manipulated in violation of proposed nomination calendar, or broke the delegate distribution rules set by the Republican National Committee. State GOP chairs in Iowa and Nevada have resigned in disgrace, and others have come under heavy scrutiny following the completion of their caucus or primary. The Iowa Caucuses became the butt of too many jokes when Iowa GOP Chairman refused to declare Rick Santorum the winner of the caucuses following the state GOP’s certification process, which clearly showed Santorum...

Only twelve states have held primaries or caucuses, and shockingly, many of them have either been scandal ridden, had their dates manipulated in violation of proposed nomination calendar, or broke the delegate distribution rules set by the Republican National Committee. State GOP chairs in Iowa and Nevada have resigned in disgrace, and others have come under heavy scrutiny following the completion of their caucus or primary. The Iowa Caucuses became the butt of too many jokes when Iowa GOP Chairman refused to declare Rick Santorum the winner of the caucuses following the state GOP’s certification process, which clearly showed Santorum...

What ever happened to the Republican genius we used to hear so much about for doing voter ID and micro-targeting their potential base? It seems like everybody I know — all faithful Democrats — has been bombarded with robocalls from Mitt Romney — and everyone who has mentioned this swears they have never voted in a Republican primary. One said she “might have” voted Reagan back in the ’80s “in another life,” but has never voted in a GOP primary. (She also said she hung up immediately because “I didn’t want that voice in my kitchen!”) Another said she’s been...

...Washington— After locking up much of the Republican establishment's heavyweight fundraisers, Mitt Romney is going after the little guy. "Donate $3 today to be automatically entered to be Mitt's special guest for Election Night on Super Tuesday," reads an email appeal from the Romney campaign to supporters. A dramatic new Web video asks for $20 contributions to fight the "Obama Attack Machine." The GOP presidential candidate made a similar solicitation after clinching the Michigan primary Tuesday, with a rare personal plea for people to visit his website and "pledge your support — in every way possible." The pitch reflects a...

The Michigan Republican Party voted to break a delegate tie Wednesday night, awarding 16 delegates to Mitt Romney and 14 to Rick Santorum. The decision, which broke a 15-15 tie that would have resulted under the pre-primary interpretation of the rules, caused disbelief at Rick Santorum’s campaign. A spokesman rejected the decision. Even Romney supporters in the Michigan GOP said the decision was unfair to Santorum. “I have this crazy idea that you follow the rules,” said former Attorney General Mike Cox said after a 4-2 vote by a Michigan GOP credentialing committee, according to the AP. “I’d love to...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I'm minding my own business yesterday -- (interruption) put a stop to what? What do you mean am I gonna put a stop to the primary? I really don't understand. What do you mean? Oh, no, no, no. It's not time to put a stop to it, anoint anybody and say that we're done. Newt's not getting out. He's gonna stay in through Super Tuesday. That's where he's got all of his money banked. This thing could go on as far as May. Santorum's not going anywhere. Santorum doesn't have a lot of money even now. Romney...

....When CNN returned to the Santorum speech, the candidate was gracious in defeat, humble and inspiring. He had a large crowd gathered along with his wife and members of his family. They were all clearly enthused and not overtly disappointed or discouraged. After thanking all who made his surprising showing possible, he returned to overriding theme of his campaign, Freedom. Next Tuesday is called "Super Tuesday" for a lot of reasons. Rick Santorum may just add one more reason by again surprising the political establishment. The political "left" knows that Rick Santorum is a formidable candidate from a working class...

TROY, Mich. — Employing a trick they used during the hotly contested Florida primary, the Romney campaign is deploying surrogates to Sen. Rick Santorum’s campaign events. At least two surrogates — former Michigan State Rep. Rocky Raczkowski and current State Rep. Aric Nesbitt from Kalamazoo — will be attending Santorum events throughout the state in the days leading up to the Michigan primary on Tuesday, a campaign official told ABC News. Other surrogates attended Santorum events held earlier in the week. Nesbitt was spotted at Santorum’s event this morning in St. Clair Shores. Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fla., and Rep. Jason...

Here's a great way to visualize former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's inability to inspire Republican primary voters: Imagine the candidate delivering a major speech at a pro football stadium. Now picture that instead of 65,000 cheering supporters, his actual audience is about 1,200 people seated quietly on the field directly in front of him. Unfortunately for Mr. Romney, no one needs to imagine that scenario. It's what actually happened today at Detroit's Ford Field. Instead of the major economic address promised by his campaign; the small audience was subjected to the same old policy ideas, quips and nervous laughter we've...

Thanks to some remarkable reporting from Big Hollywood, it has become increasingly clear the upcoming HBO movie "Game Change" is less a political melodrama than an all-out attempt to destroy the person and reputation of Sarah Palin. The movie is based on a poorly researched book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, and it was criticized at the time of its publication by Howard Kurtz, then a media reporter for the Washington Post, and the New York Times for its overreliance on unsourced "deep background" interviews that were difficult to verify. Two of those sources have been revealed, according to...

Sarah Palin’s not running for president, but up until this month she has been beating GOP front-runner Mitt Romney in a different kind of race. For the past few months, the ex-Republican vice presidential candidate has been whooping the former Massachusetts governor in one website’s merchandise sales. CafePress.com, which lets customers design and sell their own clothing items and other merchandise, finds that in December, Palin-inspired gear far outsold items featuring Romney, 80 percent to 20 percent. An average of 137,000 designs are uploaded to the website each week. Even last month, people were still picking Palin over the White...

Mitt Romney isn't singing anymore. A little more than two weeks after his off-key but enthusiastic renditions of "America the Beautiful" captured the spirit of a candidate who had won the Florida primary and seemed on the verge of locking down the Republican nomination for president, Romney is back in lackluster mode. It's not just that Romney is facing a surprising challenge in his native state of Michigan from Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who vaulted into contention in the state-by-state nomination battle with wins in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado. What alarms many Republican Party leaders and strategists are...

A thousand injuries I suffered Fortunato. But when he turned to insult, I vowed revenge." Those are the opening words to Edgar Allen Poe's short story – “The Cask of Amontillado” – ... For a case of real-life of revenge in real-life American history, think of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Burr and Hamilton held a duel that led to the death of Hamilton, (who) had said something to someone about Burr being "despicable." Newt Gingrich has a deep and abiding case against Mitt Romney. Romney has spent millions with the single purpose of destroying Gingrich as a candidate. Oh,...

John Hinderaker encapsulates an assumption which has started to take hold among many of Mitt Romney’s backers: that the fault for what appears to be an increasingly likely 2012 election loss lies with conservatives for making this a real primary. Speaking of the see-saw of not-Romney candidates, he writes: The same pattern has been repeated more than once during the current, discouraging presidential nominating process. If the GOP loses this year’s presidential contest, the party will have no one to blame but its own activists. I'm hearing this meme repeated by many increasingly dejected Romney supporters around Washington, D.C. See,...

Back in the thick of the 2008 Republican presidential race, I asked a captain of American finance what he had made of Mitt Romney when they were young colleagues at Bain & Company. “Mitt was a nice guy, a smart businessman, and an excellent team player,” he ­responded without missing a beat. Then came the CEO’s one footnote, delivered with bemusement, not pique: “Still, whenever the rest of us would go out at the end of the day, we’d always find ourselves having the same conversation: None of us had any idea who this guy was.” Here we are in...

A day before a campaign rally in Georgia, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum won a suburban Atlanta straw poll with 40-percent of the vote. The straw poll was conducted Saturday, Feb. 18 by the Coweta County GOP. Continue reading on Examiner.com Santorum wins straw poll in advance of Georgia rally - Atlanta Political Buzz | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/political-buzz-in-atlanta/santorum-wins-straw-poll-advance-of-georgia-rally#ixzz1mrzjmeiA

Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's struggles in Michigan are fueling speculation that Republicans might have to resort to a doomsday scenario and launch a frantic search for a 2012 savior at their nominating convention in late August. Rare in the modern age of U.S. politics, a "brokered convention" could result in Republicans ditching their current crop of candidates and turning to someone else who they feel would have a better chance of defeating Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 6 election. How did Republicans get to this point? Romney's failure to get conservatives fully behind him and put down yet...

[Big SNIP] ....If Romney can't win, he'll be certain that the person who beat him is so damaged, so beaten up by his negative campaign ads that they will have no chance against Obama. Unfortunately for Republicans, it creates a lose-lose situation. Mitt Romney cannot defeat Obama. His flipping and flopping is well documented and will be highlighted by the Obama campaign as the signature of one with a lack of character. He is such a poor speaker in interviews that he attempted to appeal to the middle class by trying to bet Rick Perry $10,000 and later saying that,...

KENTWOOD – Jerome Bush, an 81-year-old lifelong Republican, shook GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s hand Wednesday, recalling doing the same with his father, George Romney, during his campaign for governor more than 40 years ago. “I voted for his dad,” said Bush, the former supervisor of Fillmore Township in Allegan County. “Right now, I’m still undecided if I’m going to vote for him.” It illustrates the difficulty the former Massachusetts governor is facing on the 2012 campaign trail. Three polls released Wednesday show Rick Santorum ahead of Romney in the state where he was born and raised, a place once...

The Democrat-leaning Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is trying to revive the so-called "scandal" that the Democrats trumpeted during their successful campaign to unseat Rick Santorum in 2006. Other news outlets are starting to pick up the Post-Gazette's claims. For example, in an article published on February 14 and linked to by the Drudge Report ("Santorum's Electability Pitch Undermined by 2006 Senate Reelection Loss"), Bloomberg reports: Santorum's 2006 loss came after he was accused by Democrats of being hypocritical for moving his family to suburban Virginia, yet still claiming a property tax deduction and tuition reimbursement in Pennsylvania. The school district where his...

Mitt Romney on Wednesday defended his conservative bona fides following doubts expressed by Sarah Palin. The former Alaskan governor and vice presidential candidate told Fox News Sunday that she is "not convinced" by Romney's conservative instincts, indicating he may not be conservative "enough" for her. "And I don't think that the majority of GOP and Independent voters are convinced, and that is why you don't see Romney get over that hump," she said. (VIDEO AT LINK) "I'm not quite sure what she'd be referring to," Romney responded Wednesday, also on Fox News. "I'm pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, I believe in the...

Mitt Romney's overall favorable ratings have dropped, while Rick Santorum's standing has jumped among Republicans, according to a new national survey. A CNN/ORC International poll released Tuesday indicates Romney's popularity has especially taken a tumble among Republicans, with a 13-point decline in positive reviews from his own party.

Mitt Romney is getting some heavy air support in Michigan — the state where he was born and raised — as the “super PAC” supporting him invests almost $500,000 on television ads there. According to someone who tracks Republican media spending, Restore Our Future has committed just over $470,000 for commercials starting Tuesday and set to run through Feb. 20. That marks the group’s largest purchase yet in Michigan, where it will have spent more than $700,000 on ads by next week. The group said Monday that it would continue for now to run an ad called “Risk” that targets...